William Paley's Popular Apology

Dan Graves, MSL

Church History Timeline

The first authoritative date we have for the life of Paley is this day, August 30, 1743. Then, a little more
than a month old, he was baptized. A clumsy youth, he turned to study.
His father thought that the boy had the clearest head he had ever seen.
Although Paley was sufficiently good at mathematics to become first
wrangler of his school (that is, he placed highest in the math exams),
he became a clergyman. Following the famous John Locke's lead, Paley
wrote popular apologetics for Christianity. So well-organized were his
works that they became standard textbooks.

View of the Evidences of Christianity was an immediate hit
and so was its successor Natural Theology. In Natural
Theology he included his famous "watchmaker" argument. If
a savage were to find a watch in the middle of the jungle, he would at
once suppose it the work of an intelligent being. Nature is far more
complex and elaborate than a watch and therefore also requires a
designer. View of the Evidences of Christianity argues for the
credibility of biblical miracles.

Skeptics over the years attacked Paley's watchmaker argument on
philosophical grounds. However, in 2005, researcher Jimin Wang reported
detail which appears to be direct evidence of Paley's Watchmaker.
Certain cyanobacteria have a "circadian oscillation" which is regulated
by a rotary device, composed of proteins, that literally functions as a
clock.

Apart from the watchmaker argument, none of Paley's works were highly
original. He freely admitted he borrowed whatever he could use from
others; to some extent, all theologians must, the field has been so well
covered. However, Paley's ideas in a third book Principles of Moral
and Political Philosophy anticipated thinkers who came after.
"The general consequence of any action may be estimated by asking
what would be the consequence if the same actions were generally
permitted." This sounds like Kant. Bentham devised his utilitarian
ethic after reading Paley's comment that "we should carry out those
actions which promote the general happiness and avoid those which
diminish it."

Paley was an odd duck. Physically uncoordinated, he once fell off a
horse seven times in a single ride to town. He was constantly laughed at
(and laughed at himself) because of his absent-mindedness. When he
walked it was with weird gesticulations and the tip of his cane in his
mouth! Yet he enjoyed people and would draw them out for what they knew.
He was a devoted father. And his work was the fitting culmination of a
century and a half of natural apologetics which began with John
Locke.